Otzma Yehudit
(Jewish Strength)
Otzma Yehudit
Otzma Yehudit is known as a far right-wing party. Its organizational roots can be traced back to the Jewish National Front, a party founded in 2004 by Baruch Marzel, which ran in the elections for the 17th Knesset (2006) and did not pass the electoral threshold.
In the 2013 elections, the party ran together with the Hatikva party as the joint Otzma LeYisrael list, which failed to enter the Knesset. On the eve of the 2015 elections, the party changed its name to Otzma Yehudit and joined with the Yahad party headed by Eli Yishai. Again, it did not pass the electoral threshold, and on the eve of the elections for the 21st Knesset, the party joined with Jewish Home and the National Union to form the Union of Right-Wing Parties list. The list won five seats, and current party chair Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was placed seventh on the list, did not enter the Knesset. In the next two elections (September 2019 and 2020), the party ran independently but did not pass the electoral threshold.
In the elections for the 24th Knesset, the party ran on a joint list together with the Religious Zionism. Ben-Gvir was in third place and was elected to the 24th Knesset. This cooperation continued in the 2022 elections with the joint list also including the Noam party. Of the 14 Knesset seats won by this list, six went to representatives of Otzma Yehudit (an additional six went to the Religious Zionism and one to Noam). Representatives from the party have served in the 37th government.
Ideologically, the party advocates the idea of the Greater Land of Israel and the application of Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). Among the initiatives the party seeks to advance: the death penalty for Palestinian terrorists; the establishment of a national immigration authority that will work to expel enemies of the state; the easing of open-fire regulations for defense forces; the integration of Jewish law into the judicial system; and the selection of Supreme Court justices by politicians.
| Election Year | Votes Count | Number Of Seats | Share Of Votes | List Of Candidates | Platform |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 19,402 | - | 0.4 | ||
| September 2019 | 83,609 | - | 1.9 |
Itamar Ben-Gvir
The 37th government, which took office at the end of 2022, included three ministers representing Otzma Yehudit: Itamar Ben-Gvir (Minister of National Security), Yitzhak Wasserlauf (Minister of the Negev and the Galilee), and Amichai Eliyahu (Minister of Heritage). In January 2025, the three ministers resigned from the government as part of the faction's withdrawal from the coalition, over opposition to the deal of returning the hostages taken by Hamas. Two months later, the three ministers rejoined the government and returned to their previous positions.